Response to Lindsey Macdonald's 'We are All Housewives: Universal Basic Income as Wages for Housework'

What types of subjectivities and political actors are emerging around calls for UBI? Lindsey Macdonald’s article, “We Are All Housewives,” eloquently speaks to the concept of universality, while also situating socialist-feminist demands for UBI within speci c activist traditions. I pose questions about the distinctions between different socialist arguments for UBI and the political groups that advocate for its implementation: rst, what are the differences between autonomist and feminist proposals; and, second, how might we distinguish and evaluate organizations that are ghting for a feminist-socialist UBI? I appreciate being invited to take part in this forum on universal basic income (UBI) and to respond to Lindsey Macdonald’s article. The Marxist approaches developed by the authors are diverse and compelling, and I’ll engage them within this framework. My entry into debates surrounding UBI has, for the most part, come from Marxist autonomist work on labor and technology. There are signi cant overlaps between feminist and autonomist approaches (Silvia Federici’s writing and activism are obvious examples ). Macdonald’s article provides an opportunity to think through these different arguments for UBI, and consider the particularity and universality of feminist approaches. From the outset, I should note that I am cautious about the prospects and potential of UBI. It may well be an intervention that can reduce inequalities, address stigmas and uncertainties associated with existing social welfare provisions, and facilitate more creative, freer relationships to working (and not working). Yet, I am not convinced it is either immanently achievable or that, as a longer-term strategy, it can light our way out of the darkness of capital. As Macdonald argues, “the version of basic income we get will depend on the political forces that shape it.” The likelihood of UBI and, perhaps more importantly, the ways UBI could take shape are dependent on the subjectivities and collective political actors that form around these demands. One of the major strengths of Macdonald’s argument is that it returns questions about UBI to the solid ground of women’s struggles over reproductive labor and domestic work. She presents advocacy for UBI as part of the long history of movements for women’s emancipation and contributes to feminist debates surrounding UBI. For example, Macdonald identi es National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) activists, primarily black working-class women, who took their protests and demands to welfare of ces in the United States in the 1960s. And she argues that they articulated critiques of the welfare state with demands to extend welfare provisions. They are presented as part of this shared political history. 1